


Sorry

by saigero



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, ENJOY THIS WEIRD THING THATS ROMANCE BUT NOT, F/M, but yea, does that count???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saigero/pseuds/saigero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Saizo gets badly injured, Kagero fears the worst. Modern AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorry

Saizo burst through the door. 

Kagero stood up from where she had sat on the couch. “Saizo? Do you know what the time is?” she demanded. “Where were you?”

He strode right past her and went straight to a drawer in the kitchen. The Drawer. She blanched. That drawer was where she had put the knife that Ryoma had taken from him, back when he had agreed to put Saizo up for the night. That night had turned into days, with days spilling over into months and months into almost three years now.

Three years since Ryoma had let the two of them live with him; taking one troubled young man off the streets and giving Kagero what was essentially a free apartment while she tried to find a job. Three years since Saizo had promised to never hurt someone with that knife again.

And one second to break that promise.

“Where is it?” he growled as he wrenched the drawer open. “Saizo, stop,” Kagero commanded, but he just didn't listen. He never did. 

Saizo turned to her, wild-eyed. Both of his eyes glinted in the light of the lamp she’d turned on while waiting for him to come back. Ryoma had gone to bed first - he was the one who had his life together, the one who knew everything - and Kagero had thought that tonight would be a simple matter to wait for her best friend (was it anything more than that?) to come back home. Now, though, she wished that Ryoma was awake. With Saizo as frenzied as he was, she could never stop him.

“Where is it?” Saizo growled. “I need it!” 

Kagero shook her head, determined to stop Saizo before he started out on whatever mad path he had chosen to walk on this dark night. “No,” she told him firmly. “You’re not doing this.”

When he put his hands on her shoulders, her heart sank. No, don't do this, she wanted to say. Don't go where I can't follow. Don't go so far away, because you’ll never come back. “You can't stop me,” he snarled. The intensity of his eyes both saddened and terrified her. “I must do this, Kagero.” 

She turned pale, but still shook her head resolutely. “I'm not letting you make another mistake. Do you want to go to jail Saizo? I can't let you do this!” But it was too late.

He stared at his hands for a moment. A look flashed on his shadow-cast face of something she couldn't quite make out. Disgust, or anger, or something deeper than that…? Whatever it was, it was something Kagero knew she would never understand. He wrenched his hands off her in a display of regret that she understood, but it didn't mean enough. “Sorry,” he whispered, and he was gone out the front door. 

“Saizo!” Kagero ran to the door, her hair beginning to rise from the slowly picking-up wind. “Come back!” He was running down the street, and she saw him falter. Saizo could hear her, and that gave her hope. “I’m going to get Ryoma and Kaze,” she called out to him. She could never have stopped Saizo on her own when he was worked up like he was now. “Just- don't do anything!” Kagero was pleading to him, trying so hard to get her message across to a hothead like him. 

It didn't work. 

He turned around to look at her. A bolt of lightning crashed down behind him. She couldn't hear him as thunder filled her ears, but it was gone as soon as it came, just like Saizo. 

Kagero turned back to the inside of the house and ran to the phone.

—

Kagero sat in the back seat.

Her fingers tapped nervously on the seat, and she kept glancing at the rain-soaked streets outside. “Are we almost there yet?” Ryoma asked the limo driver, and Yukimura shook his head. “Storm’s something bad. We must go slow, or we’ll be the ones in the ER.” 

The joke didn't make any of the three of them laugh, and Yukimura chose to remain quiet. “But we’ll be there soon, right?” Kaze asked. His dyed green hair was swept back from his face, and it was clear that he’d only woken up an hour ago when Kagero had called him. Even his clothes were rumpled from being hastily pulled on just in time to hop into Ryoma’s personal limousine. 

Ryoma nodded slowly, the wear of the last few minutes showing on his face. He had hastily bound his hair back into a ponytail when Kagero had urgently run upstairs to tell him about the phone call she had just gotten from Igasato Hospital. “I hope so,” was all he said to his friend’s twin brother.

“I hope so.” 

The mood in the car was tense as they sped along. Yukimura kept turning the rear-view mirror even though there was nothing to look at. Kaze was murmuring something Kagero couldn't hear, and Ryoma had adopted a stern expression and folded arms. All of them were worried.

“I should have stopped him,” she said suddenly. Yukimura’s eyes flashed to her in the rear-view mirror, then back to the road in front. “Don't say that,” Kaze told her. His reassuring smile belied his strained eyes as he touched her arm gently. “I know my brother, he’s more stubborn than anyone in all of Hoshido.” 

She pulled away from his touch, furious at herself. “I should have stopped him,” she repeated. “I should have stopped him.” 

As despondent as the mood in the car was already, it somehow managed to drop even lower. It remained that way until they reached Igasato, and her heart leapt into her mouth as they rushed out of the car and Yukimura went to park the limousine. 

“Do you know where Saizo is?” Those were the first words out of Ryoma’s mouth as he ran to the reception counter, and the woman looked at him like he was mad. “What’s his name?” she asked, and impatiently, he told her, “Koga Saizo. He was admitted an hour ago.”

To Kagero, it took far too long for the nurse to rifle through the stack of papers, then look it up on the computer. It seemed like every second she took to just find where one man was an eternity that wasted.

Finally, she said to Ryoma, “Ward F, Room 19, Bed 16. Take the lift to the left to level 3.” Ryoma nodded curtly, and the group of three were off. 

When they finally reached the room in question, Kagero immediately knew where Saizo was. “There,” she breathed as they skidded to a halt right outside the doorway. A group of doctors were all gathered around a bed to the back of the scarily clinical room. Kagero’s heart raced as she ran up to them.

The doctors completely obscured the bed, not letting them see the man they were all worried for. Ryoma took charge. “Where’s Saizo?” he demanded as he made an attempt to keep calm. The group of doctors looked confused, but one of them, an older man with slicked back hair, cleared his throat. 

“I take it you're his family?” he asked, stepping forward, and Kaze nodded. “I’m his brother,” he explained. The doctor nodded seriously and took the three of them to the side. 

Once they were away from the others, the doctor told them with a grave expression, “It’s bad.” He consulted the papers in his hand for a moment, then looked back up at the three of the anxious young people. “Mr Koga has a serious laceration on his face from forehead to cheekbone. He also has sustained heavy bruising to his ribs, back, head and thighs as well as three puncture wounds to his abdomen.”   
 “Will he be alright?” Kagero demanded. She stared the doctor in the eyes, willing him to tell her that Saizo would be okay. 

The doctor nodded slowly, and the three of them breathed out heavily in a sigh of relief. He held up a hand to stop them from prematurely assuming that Saizo would be completely fine and said, “But he’ll be in Igasato for a long while. The laceration to his face will scar badly, I’m afraid.”

“It doesn't matter,” Kagero said impatiently. “As long as he’s alright, it doesn't matter.” The doctor was silent as he studied the trio for a moment, then finally told them, “You’d probably like to see him now. I think we’re done here, anyway.” 

He turned to the side and motioned for the doctors to move. Before the way was completely clear, the three of them had already rushed over to Saizo’s bedside. 

Kagero’s heart sank. Saizo looked terrible, like he had received a horrendous beating, and upon thinking that, she knew it was the truth. 

His head was almost entirely swathed in bandages, covering up most of his bright dyed-red hair with its characteristic cowlick. There was a respirator attached to his mouth and a drip leading up from his right arm. The standard hospital gown they had provided him with was ill-fitting, and Kagero could see the bruises that looked like storm clouds that covered his arms and face. 

He was a mess.

Ryoma’s worried frown became dangerous, and he gripped the rail of the hospital bed with an angry intensity that could have made a lesser person quake. Meanwhile, Kaze had sat down on a chair and was running a hand through his dyed-green locks. His mouth was set in a grim line that Kagero knew meant he was upset. 

As for herself, she didn't move an inch. Kagero just stood there, looking down at Saizo. Looking down at a disaster she could have prevented.

Quietly, she stretched her arm out and took Saizo’s hand that had just been lying to the side of the bed. 

He felt surprisingly warm, and she rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. She kept her face emotionless, but her hand trembled ever so slightly. Kagero cursed herself; cursed herself for not being fast enough, cursed herself for not noticing Saizo’s stormy demeanor that morning. 

But before Kagero could have blamed herself any further, she suddenly felt Saizo’s hand twitch. Her eyes darted to his face, and she saw his one eye lock onto her. 

“He’s awake!” Kaze sprang up out of his chair, and Ryoma leaned down over the bed. “Saizo!” He sounded incredibly relieved. “I’m glad you’re awake, Saizo.”  
Saizo only had eyes for Kagero, however. He brushed her hand with his bruised fingers, ignoring both his brother and his friend, and she bent down over him worriedly. “What is it?” she asked him, eyes wide. He was murmuring something softly, and Kagero put her ear to the side of the red-haired man’s face.

“I’m… sorry,” he whispered thickly with his one eye fluttering open. His words were slurred and came out slowly; likely from the morphine they’d administered to him. “For… shouting at… you. I’m… sorry…”

Kagero made an odd noise that was a mix of a choke and a laugh. “It’s fine,” she insisted, but Saizo’s one visible eyebrow narrowed as he muttered as angrily as he could, “I yelled… at you. Shouldn’t… Shouldn’tve… done that… my… fault…” 

She gripped his hand tight as she straightened up, a tired smile on her face. He was alright. “I forgive you,” she told him.

Saizo’s hand relaxed, and his hand dropped off to the side as he nodded. “Good…” was his last slurred word before he closed his eyes. Kagero kept holding his hand even as he went to sleep. 

“I forgive you.”

**Author's Note:**

> OH LORD alright, so. First fic in a possible series of modern AU one-shots? Or perhaps one in a series of Saigero fics. 
> 
> This one focuses on Saizo and Kagero’s relationship. I know that they’re tempestuous at best and raging at each other at their worst, and I was trying really hard to get across how explosive their dynamic is. I hope I didn't write them too out of character haha, this one was written in two different settings roughly a month and a half apart. 
> 
> Lemme know what you think! More Saigero incoming, with the next one hopefully some glorious NSFW. 
> 
> Now for some fun facts. Koga was a region in Japan that was noted to train ninja in the 17th Century, and since Saizo is a ninja, I thought, well, it’d fit (it means that Kaze’d be Koga Kaze, however, which sounds like a brand of instant noodles). Igasato is also the name of Saizo and Kaze’s village as mentioned in Saizo’s supports with Mozu. Lastly, the room Saizo is in is the release date for Fates in North America and Singapore (where I live!!) - February the 19th, 2016.   
>   With that, I take my leave. Till next time!


End file.
